


On the Mountaintop

by Kabewmer



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28926156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kabewmer/pseuds/Kabewmer
Summary: This was a writing prompt that told me to write a story from the perspective of me attending the last speech given by Martin Luther King Jr. I did so using some aspects of my dad's childhood because he genuinely grew up in deep south Mississippi where racism was rampant.





	On the Mountaintop

Surrounded by the lively mass of Dr King’s sermon, my mind began to wander through my past, remembering the events that had led me to standing here today. I recall one specific memory of my youth, back when I was naive and stupid, where I played with the Matherson’s boy on a hot, Mississippi summer afternoon. Jimmy Matherson was a little negro boy, who had been no different in my eyes to my own brothers. My father had just returned from working another long shift at Sanderson Farms’s poultry plant, when he happened upon myself and Jimmy. He just about jerked a patch of my hair out of my head and dragged me home, where I received perhaps the soundest beating of my life. Bruised and teary eyed, he sat me down on his knee and told me words that I’ll never forget til the day I die.  
“Son, there’s something you need to learn. Them black folk ain't us, they don’t talk like us, pray like us, or even think like us. I don’t want you playing with that boy anymore. You’re allowed to respect them negroes, but you don’t ever mix with them. You understand?”  
I hadn’t understood then and I sure as hell don’t understand it now, but I wouldn’t have dared disobey my father. The roaring crowd shook me out of my thoughts, and I was drawn again to the enigmatic figure standing on the stage in front of me. His words reverberated throughout the chamber of Mason Temple, filling its inhabitants with a righteous vigor that I had never experienced before. He was a preacher, and this was a church but the atmosphere was one that was distinctly foreign to me. This wasn’t how the Church of Christ gave sermons, and that was all I had ever known. I think that’s why it had taken so long for the world to start listening to them. Dr. King stood tall, a proverbial city on the hill, but most white folk are too busy looking down, following the footsteps of what their family had done for generations so they don’t see him or his message up on the moral high ground. The status quo was working for us, so why challenge that with radical thoughts of equality? “...So I'm happy tonight, I'm not worried about anything, I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.” The auditorium exploded into applause, as Dr. King brought an end to his powerful speech. Afterwards I was herded with the rest of the congregation out the doors, where the familiar sight of protesters awaited me. You’d think that because we shared the same skin color they’d ignore me, but no. I was the race trader, the negro lover, a true traitor to my own kind. By this point I had grown used to it. My family already disowned me a year ago, what else did I have to lose? “All men are created equal.” How is that not a concept they could understand? It was so clear to me, yet somehow I was the short sighted one. I recited to myself Psalm 23:4 as a mixture between a prayer and a promise. Dr. King’s voice was one that united the people, and I know that as long as he lives true equality can one day be achieved for all. Which made his death that night, all the more of a shock.


End file.
